Swift Reefer Trio

Here is a trio of Rapido HO scale Swift meat reefers on my Citrus Belt Railway. They are some of the mainly empty freight cars being hauled from the Los Angeles area to San Bernardino, where they will be blocked and sent out on various trains headed to the Midwest and Southwest. On my railroad this local train is known as the “Bulldog”, the same name for a similar train once operated by the Santa Fe for a similar purpose.

Until I started the Railway Bull Shippers group ( https://groups.io/g/RailwayBullShippersGroup ) back in 2006 I had no meat reefers on my railroad. This railroad still concentrates on the citrus industry and produce reefers, but the roster of meat reefers grows a bit each year. I just don’t have any meat packers or meat packer branch houses on the railroad, so the cars only appear in moving trains.

The Rapido reefers are highly detailed and operate quite well. The trucks rolled so freely I didn’t bother lubricating the journal cavities with Teflon.

I used PanPastels to weather them. Compared to most prototype photos I have seen of the red Swift reefers these models are a bit more weathered on the sides. However, the prototype photos from the mid-1950s show a lot of soot on the roofs and wheels splash residue on the ends. My guess is that Swift regularly cleaned the sides of their cars but didn’t bother with the ends or roofs.